Braiding machines, such as the Wardwell "New England Butt 2BX, 144 Carrier Round Braider", slightly modified, are being used by the applicant to produce flat braided fabrics used in composite materials. The carriers, which hold the spools of fiber/tow material on the braiding machine and come as standard components of the braiding machine, however, often preclude the use of higher modulus carbon and ceramic fibers because the fiber, as fed off the spool, proceeds along a fairly tortuous path that can cause fiber damage or even cause the carrier to fail during the braiding operation. Damaged braided fibers result in structures with reduced mechanical properties. Carrier failure results in expensive downtime. Also, with these prior art carriers, wider fibers and prepeg tows are very difficult to use because of carrier hardware size limitations and the tortuous fiber path.
Another shortcoming of the currently available carriers is that they only have a 3 inch take-up which, although satisfactory when braiders are used in the circular braiding configuration, is unsatisfactory when circular braiders are modified to produce flat braided fabrics.